The Globe. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1017, 28 September 1877, Page 2

The Globe. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1877.

The project of the Australian Juvenile Industrial Exhibition is being taken up with great enthusiasm in Victoria. In Ballarat, where it is to be held, the Executive Committee have been working with a will. At a recent meeting a mass of correspondence from all parts of Victoria, and several, of the other colonies, was read, warmly appreciating the object in view, and desiring to encourage it. At a public meeting held in Melbourne a short time ago, the li on. Secretary explained the objects of the Exhibition to be — “ To enlist the sympathies and arouse the energies of the young people to compete in works of industry and usefulness, and impress on parents, their sons and daughters, the dignity and honor of labor; to cultivate the inventive faculties of those who are in trades and show proficiency, also those who may be following other occupations ; to enable all to show their handiwork, and obtain new ideas from each other; to cultivate their minds for useful employment and recreation during leisure hours; to create a taste for the hue arts and ornamental works, so as to make home 1 attractive.” The Exhibition is to be divided into four sections, as follows — TTadev twenty-one of at

the time of applying for space. 2. Apprentices not out of their indentures, whatever their age. JL Between the ages of fifteen and eighteen years. I. Under fifteen years of age. The Hon. Secretary further stated that the apprentice boys of Ballarat were entering into the undertaking in earnest. At one foundry nine boys were engaged in making a bogie engine in their leisure hours. Other boys were making a stage coach, buggy, &c. A feature in the exhibition would be a model railway on 1 1 inch scale, and rails S inch gauge. All the features of a complete railway scheme would be introduced, minature cataracts would be constructed, and there would be an artificial river, windmills, steamers, stage coaches, Ac., introduced into the scheme. The committee wanted girls as well as boys to exhibit, and prizes with that object would be given. We observe that the people of Dunedin have taken the project up warmly, and we hope the example set will be followed here. The idea of the projectors is a good one, and should be heartily encouraged. It will tend to dignify work and make it attractive in the eyes of the youth of the colony, and this is surely a very desirable aim. There is a disposition, we are afraid, on the part of the majority of colonial youths to regard industry as an evil to be avoided, if possible, and any plan which helps to enoble it in their eyes should receive every assistance.

At the present moment anything which throws light on the Eastern Question must he of interest. .From information to hand by the last mail, we learn that Russian auger against England is growing fiercer every day. The London correspondent of the Ary us, writing on August 3rd, says that all the sacrifices, and all the mortifications endured by the Russian arms in Turkey are laid at the door of England. The other day he says there was an elaborate treatise published in St. Petersburg by a Russian officer, proving the necessity of utterly destroying England in order to secure the peace of the world. The process is to begin with the Australian colonies. The Galas counsels giving up all other objects of the war to the one purpose of pushing forward in Asia to the injury of English interests in that quarter. “We must open the roads from the Caueusus,” says the Galas, “ to the mouths of the Euphrates, and from our provinces in Central Asia to the borders of Hindostan.” It is said that the Russian journals are unanimously of opinion that Armenia must be conquered in order that the British power may be discomfited, and the pride of the British lion lowered. The correspondent to whom we have been referring says: —“ These effusions of the Russian press cannot but have a certain interest for us in England. In the first place,they demonstrate clearly enough what has been always in the minds of the Russians —what is the true secret of their policy in the East. They fully justify the policy of those whom it pleases the British fanatical mind to call “Russophobists.” They prove that the weak point of England’s position is supposed to be India in the eyes of the Russians. In the next place, they prove the utter hollowness of the pretences on which this war was undertaken —that its real object was not the amelioration of the lot of the Christians in the Turkish provinces, but the extension of Russian dominion in the East. A s soon as anything comes to arouse t lie susceptibilities of the Pan-Slavists, even the Slave is thrown over. The last thing which is in their minds is to introduce better government in Bulgaria, unless by better government we understand Russian government. It is with them, Russia first and Christianity afterwards.”

& ——— We beg to remind the ratepayers of Christchurch a public meeting will be held in the Oddfellows’ Hall to-night to consider the provisions of the Canterbury Public Domains Amendment Bill. As our readers are aware, it empowers the Domain Board to make such a charge as the Board shall see lit on certain specified occasions, for admission to the Park and Domain or any part thereof. We have already pointed out how undesirable it is that any such power should be granted, and we hope that the ratepayers will express in nnmistakeahle terms their opinion on this attempt to curtail the unrestricted use of the public reserves. At the same lime, it might be well to take the sense of the meeting on the propriety of empowering the Board to allow the promoters of an exhibition, special cricket match, or other such gathering to make a cl large to a portion of the Park, temporarily used for the purposes of specific recreation. To carefully guard against the creation of any vested right, the operation of the Act might he limited to say a period of ten years. Wore the Bill amended in the direction we have indicated, there would bo no possible objection to it becoming law. *